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Online e-Commerce Issues w/ PayPal?
Posted by
Cliff
on Mon Dec 10, 2001 01:50 PM
from the knowing-what-happens-with-your-money dept.
from the knowing-what-happens-with-your-money dept.
A concerned entrepreneur submitted this question for your consideration: "I run a very small online company and the main method we obtain payments for products is via PayPal. In this digital age having an easy way to accept payments for goods is critical to small business survival. Have you had problems with PayPal freezing your accounts, have you had any issues with PayPal harming any of your credit? Neither has happened to me but it
it still is a concern. Recently, I was sent this site, became concerned and wanted to ask Slashdot readers for their input on security and any problems they may have had with this service." If you send your money to a website for safekeeping, you expect it to be safe, and a large part of this perception is based on dependable customer support. According the warning site, it sounds like PayPal might be a bit deficient on this end. Have any of you experienced similar problems?
"I don't necessarily trust the website I linked to, nor PayPal's statements. PayPal requires you to register your credit card AND your checking account and could conceivably and legally(?) remove any and all funds and stop you from withdrawing a dime from your PayPal account as well as your own checking account at their whim. What is a small business to do?"
Just an aside, if you are signing up for a personal account, you only need your credit card. It's merchants who want to use PayPal's premium features who have to specify banking information as well.
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Online e-Commerce Issues w/ PayPal?
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PayPal (Score:5, Informative)
I think the main thing to keep in mind is that PayPal is not a bank, and not FDIC insured.. I'd use it as a method to exchange money online, but not as a cash storage facility.
Re:PayPal (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, the new version of Yahoo! PayDirect [yahoo.com] is FDIC insured. Its fees [yahoo.com] are similar to the current PayPal fees [paypal.com]. I haven't used PayDirect since it switched banks several weeks ago, but I remember that it was possible to contact Yahoo about the service if you were willing to pay for a long-distance phone call. (PayDirect is also the only service that I was able to get a tip bookmarklet [squarefree.com] to work with, so I'm biased.)
My PayPal account was hacked. (Score:4, Informative)
The best part was, you feel pretty good with PayPal because of the third party insurance. But when you really need it, PayPal is not very helpful. I reported to PayPal right away and then realized that they don't even have a phone number regular users can call. It took them six days to reply my email asking for affidavit. I sent out my affidavit with police report right away via priority mail and it took them two weeks to reply me this time saying that they have never received it. Upon my request they finally gave me a fax number. About a week after I faxed everything to them, they reversed the two transactions, but then restored one, and then charged another $625 without any reason given. So my account actually got a even bigger negative number than before. I've sent tons of emails to them checking about this. And after 20 days silence, PayPal wrote me another email on Dec. 9, exactly two month since the hacking attack, claiming that they had never received my fax. Fortunately I did keep the receipt of the fax to prove that I have sent the fax and they had received it.
Today I got a statement from my bank saying that because the recurring overdraft situation has not been resolved for too long, they have closed my checking account and filed a record for five years. Next they will pass my case to an agent to collect the money from me. PayPal has no comments at all so far.
PayPal is a neat thing when there's nothing wrong. But once there's a problem (and the problem is likely to occur again since the hacker is still not tracked down yet), they just leave you aside. It reminds me a joke I've heard, something providing you a false feeling of security while you are actually being screwed. It refers to condom before... now I think it fits PayPal better.
I am working on suing PayPal since I have to get my banking record straight up. If anyone has similar experience and want to work on it together, please contact me at hook@263.net (sorry to use such an address... I only use it for first contact because it has spam filter.)
I have sufficient documents to prove the story. Including my certified affidavit, police report, bank statement, email history and transaction summary.
Hook
The Lack of Physical Stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
When you go into a regular bank, you look around and see they have pretty lightbulbs, nice counters, poorly decorated walls, and all sorts of plush chairs and things. They've even got those little pens. Other people are waiting inside. These things make you *want* to be there.
A website might be real, real pretty, but that doesn't have any physical worth. When I step into a pretty bank, I know that my money is probably going to be secure because in the worst case senario, they've got physical stuff to back my loan with. While this doesn't have practical application in the real world, this is a large part of how our brain percieves things.
Paypal is dubious because they've got nothing to look at. Sure, they've got a big customer base, but *where is* paypal, and who runs the thing? I think the digital world is still evolving in that we still can't estimate worth by a website. I hope we can in the future.
PayPal is *not* a bank (Score:5, Informative)
Real banks have state charters and are closely supervised, have strict documentation and recording requirements, etc. I don't give a damn about the physical appearance of my bank, I do care about that little sign on the front door saying "FDIC insured." This doesn't mean that I'll never have problems, but it (and the state charter required for that insurance) does guarantee that they keep sufficient records for problems to be resolved, that money in accounts won't go *poof* if the bank goes under, etc.
But Paypal is nothing. If it goes under, the money it holds just disappears. If it says it's never heard of me, I have no way of proving that I have an account with thousands of dollars. If they make a payment, they have no statutory requireemnt to document that it was authoritized or to refund my money.
I'm not totally without rights, but instead of strong local oversight I have to deal with a civil suit in the Federal courts for a contract dispute. If I could prove that we had a contract (did you ever get a signed document from PayPal?). If I could afford the expense. If I could affort the long delays before the case is heard. And all of that assumes that they haven't changed their "terms of service" to require binding arbitration by an arbitrator of their choice.
During the early days, this may have been justifiable. Not just because it costs money and time to do it right, but because the regulatory agencies wouldn't have known what to do with something like PayPal. I know, because I actually checked local laws and discovered requirements for things like a physical location open to the public, cash reserves, etc.
But not now - even if PayPal is completely honorable (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), the lack of oversight limits how much confidence we can have in them. If they are acting like a bank and being perceived as a bank, it's long past time for them to BE a bank. Until then, they're no different than trusting "my buddy Bob" to deliver you the cash promised the next time he's in town.
Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know lots of people who have never had a problem with PayPal, everything runs smoothly. The people I've talked to that have had a problem all have had a complete nightmare with it. Every one of them.
Now it is possible, prehaps likely that people that have a problem that is resolved quickly are less likely to complain about it. This could be why I've never heard good things about their customer service but I don't think it's the case. Banks have sets of rules and years of experience dealing with problem transactions. They aren't perfect (I have stories, that would make you ill) but because PayPal is a pretty new concept I think they still have a lot of kinks to work out.
Re:Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:4, Informative)
Another charge was attempted by IOPAY.COM soon after and declined again for security reasons. On October 1, I received notice of the fraudulent charges and telephoned CHASE VISA and stated that IOPAY.COM did not have my authorization and please do not accept any other attempts by IOPAY.COM to use my card. I cancelled my card and had a new card number issued.
Since then, there have been (I think) 4 attempted charges by IOPAY.COM, none of which is legitimate. I've never used my CHASE VISA card for online purchases. I've signed 3 statements to the fact that I did not authorize and do not authorize any charges by IOPAY.COM at any time, as well. I believe all charges have been made to the previously cancelled account and forwarded to the new one.
All additional attempted charges have been honored by CHASE VISA against my explicit direction and the earlier assessment by their own internal fraud department. I have had to deal with each charge specifically and have been threatened in writing and over the phone by CHASE VISA employees that I can be held liable for the charges if their own internal decision is that the charges are valid. As I said, I have signed three statements that the charges are not valid and am awaiting the fourth in the mail.
I finally cancelled my CHASE VISA card completely and hope this will resolve the issue.
So, you see, it isn't only PayPal that has poor customer service.
I believe that at least some credit card companies are in collusion with and silently accept knowingly fraudulent charges. They certainly stand to profit by it. Credit card companies make 2% or more per transaction, not to mention any interest accumulated on such charges.
I believe CHASE VISA is a willing, if not active, participant in such fraud, allowing pornography or other online sites to make charges that are not valid; and by having lax security and inadequate authorization measures, they are stealing from their customers in the hope that at least a percentage of fraudulent charges (which they stand to profit by) will go uncontested, or will be unsuccessfully contested (according to their dispute resolution rules) by their customers.
In my opinion, you're screwed either way. Our banking system needs stronger protection for customers.
Re:Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:4, Informative)
I use PP for a lot of transactions, and have also recently paid to get a merchant account with a 'real' bank. Its far more expensive, and the rules are far stricter...especially since we sell everything over the internet. If I get screwed by someone with the Merchant Account, I am out the merchandice, I get a return fee AND if the bank happens to approve too many fradulent cards, they charge us again.
To me, that is far worse than PPs methods. Why the hell should I be charged by the bank for something they approved? I'm told I can pay for their verification system (at a cost of like $1 per transaction of something huge like that), but they still don't offer any insurance.
No system is perfect, hell, a friend sold a few gran worth of equipment and decided to do things the most secure way he knew how -- COD through UPS. UPS took the obviously fraulent money order (looked like it was printed on a bad inkjet) and then proceeded to blame the seller...told him to talk to the postal authorities since it was a 'postal money order', who of course didn't have anything to do with it as they didn't print it out, and it wasn't one of their folks accepting it.
So, to me, PP offers far greater security than merchant accounts. As a buyer, I get a little warry about folks using this, but as a seller, I'd rather take the few problems PP has over the other systems...
clif
Re:Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not as a seller, but as a client... (Score:5, Informative)
You give PayPal the money in exchange for a service if paypal does not provide the service you have a legitimate dispute and you can probably get your money back from the CC company. PayPal knows this, and that is why it is a violation of the PayPal TOS to file a dispute with your credit card company. If you dispute the charges, PayPal will be screwed if they can't get the money back from the other party. Of course we would alll agree that this is fair, but PayPal would much rather that _you_ be screwed.
PayPal encourages all buyer purchase disputes to be filed and resolved through the PayPal dispute resolution process, and reserves the right to terminate or restrict account privileges of buyers who file chargeback complaints without attempting to resolve the complaints through PayPal.
Of course by the time you've gone through the PayPal dispute process it will probably be too late to dispute the charge with your bank.
Use a credit card (Score:4, Insightful)
Trust and Convenience (Score:5, Interesting)
Attention: Slashdot editors (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you for your attention with regards to this matter.
P.S. IANAL.
Win-win (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ever "go bad" and decide to start screwing people, Paypal is your weapon of choice. If you are a scrupulous merchant, Paypal is probably the best way to go because there will be few complaints on either side of the transaction. As I am also an ebay power seller who uses Paypal, things have been just fine on that side of the table as well.
Just my 2c.
df
Re:I rate PayPal a 5 out of 10 (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at it like this:
You pay money to a merchant, he lets it sit there for a couple of weeks before he pulls it out.
The merchant pays a small amount to PayPal for the convienence, but the big money comes from the interest on the money.
$50 for two weeks might not seem like much, but multiply it by thousands, and it adds up quick.
Consequently, when you want to take money out, they have the transaction take a couple of extra days to squeeze every drop of interest.
C2IT Security Holes.. (Score:4, Informative)
Consider the source.... (Score:4, Informative)
Good, but proceed with caution. (Score:5, Informative)
1) Transfer all money out of your PayPal account IMMEDIATELY. This doesn't give them a chance to freeze it.
2) Tell your bank to not allow PayPal to withdraw from your account without your authorization. I've heard of them dipping into the checking account if the funds aren't in the PayPal account.
3) Having your customers pay with credit cards... that way if anything happens they can dispute the charges.
Hopefully with these precautions you should be okay.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Re:Good, but proceed with caution. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most customers aren't very savvy. If you tell people "Don't use a check when you do business with me, use a credit card, because I use PayPal, and they might rip you off", they are going to hear "Don't... do business with me... because I... might rip you off."
They don't wanna hear from "this other company is at fault", they're gonna wanna give you money and have you give them goods and/or services, period.
Paypal's debit card (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Signed up for a Yahoo! Mail account, and told Paypal to send policy updates and transaction details there. I think alot of these companies want to keep in contact with you so you don't get trapped when they have to change policy.
2. Signed up, and received, the Paypal debit Mastercard. You get this by being a Premier or Business member. This debits straight from the Paypal account. I pay for art prints, supplies, and shipping through Kinkos, Mail Boxes Etc, and even the US Postal Service (yep, they take credit cards now).
Their main aim is to keep cash in the account, so that they can make money off of it. They make no jokes about it either -- clues are there if you go to their money market fund and read through the prospectus.
Also, Paypal *does* insure the accounts though The Traveler's Group (a well known, respected insurance company). They sidestep that issue.
Of course you could use Spamazon (more trouble than it's worth) or Yahoo! PayDirect (less features, more secure, more time consuming). But Paypal's the best bet here.
$12,000 Nearly Stolen - My story (Score:5, Insightful)
About a month ago, I logged into my email to find email "receipts" for nearly $12K in payments, all of which were made while I was sleeping during the night before. Someone had gotten into my account and transferred to several other people various sums of money ranging from $75 to $5000 per transaction. Most of them were against my credit card, but several were against my personal checking account (used mostly for hobby spending so it didn't have much in it) including the $5000 one. I called my bank to protect the checking account and they were very helpful. The credit card company's fraud detection department called me before I even had a chance to call them. Paypal's fraud detection??? Nothing. When I called them (and getting that phone number is no easy task), that sudden burst of activity hadn't even made anyone curious.
My paypal account was put in restricted status and I detailed exactly which transactions were fraudulent. I moved the remaining checking funds out of the path of paypal and had the credit card number cancelled. You'd think that this would stop anything from going forward and efforts could be concentrated on reversing the transactions. Nope. The middle of the next week brought me a series of automated messages from Paypal indicating that my transactions to withdraw all that money from my checking account failed, but not to worry, they'd try again in 3 days. I called paypal and was told that those attempts were automatic and *nothing* could be done to stop them from completing their course.
My bank has been great, letting those transactions bounce and not charging me a dime for stopped payments or overdrafts related to this. The credit card company is treating it like any other fraud, and while it may take a bit to work out, they're working with my refusal to pay for these transactions. As for Paypal? Their handling of this was totally unprofessional for anyone handling money.
The icing on the cake was the emails I started getting once Paypal took the money back from the recipients. I was being accused of cheating them and being asked to resubmit the payments I owed. When I asked to what address they sent the merchandise (hoping to get the mailing address of the perpetrator), it was implied that it was for something related to warez in an IRC channel. At least one of the recipients still thinks I am just out to cheat him out of his money. So, whoever set this up screwed both sides over.
Some other informative sites..." (Score:5, Informative)
just accept credit cards (Score:3, Insightful)
So double check your needs. Maybe you can rationalize accepting credit cards directly.
PayPal vs. real payment processing (Score:4, Flamebait)
The only downside to "real" processing is the barrier of entry. You've got to fill out a bit more paperwork, talk to at least one real human (the banker), and there are some startup fees associated with it. But once you are up and running it quickly will become more economical than paypal, because of the difference in transactions rate (5% vs. 2.5% as mentioned above), not to mention you won't loose sales to people that don't want to sign up with PayPal.
And just as you thought I was posting to get karma...no, you guessed it, it's Shameless Plug(tm) time!
The only Open Source payment processor in the business: TrustCommerce [trustcommerce.com]
Mention Slashdot when you sign up for a test account and you'll get a free...um, well nothing, but at least we'll know you're cool.
You only hear the bad news (Score:4, Redundant)
I've been using PayPal for a long time, and I've never had a problem with it. I wish I could say the same for some of the vendor sites out there (e.g., I'll never buy again from half.com, but that's another story).
In case anyone's wondering, this isn't astroturf support. I'm a real person [lesher.ws] who just happens to like PayPal.
Tim
Use a credit merchant. (Score:4, Informative)
I have had problems...... (Score:3, Interesting)
But on 3 separtate occasions I have had payments held, and also on one occasion I have had my account frozen. And yes it did take me FOREVER to get a hold of anyone on the phone (thank god for "free" LD on my cell). I was told it was a "routine" random freeze, blah blah blah, several days later they "unfroze" my account. And yes it was a major and total bitch, but there really aren't any other shows in town, so what do you do?
I had my Credit Card Stolen and Used with PayPal (Score:5, Informative)
Just an aside, if you are signing up for a personal account, you only need your credit card. It's merchants who want to use PayPal's premium features who have to specify banking information as well.
First of all, some corrections of what was stated above...PayPal requires only a credit card, but you can only make $1000 worth of transactions with the account. This doesn't mean that it's a $1000 per transaction limitation, but more like all of the money you can ever use with them. Once you give them a bank account, *then* this $1000 restriction is removed. I believe their single transation limit is $250, but this might be for accounts without a banking account linked to them.
About 6 months or so ago, I noticed a $250 charge on one of my credit cards from PayPal. It struck me as odd, since I had only performed a single $50 transaction. I contacted PayPal and my credit card company, and found out the following:
The card with the $250 charge on it had actually not been the card I registered with PayPal. The info had been stolen from some other online vendor, and the thief created a new PayPal account with my card. The PayPal rep I spoke to claimed that the name on the account has to match the name on the card, so, obviously, this person found a way around their system (or the rep was wrong).
But, both PayPal and my credit card company handled the problem well. I wasn't accountable, and I had all of the money returned to me. The moral of this story is to make sure you check your credit card statements, because when mysterious charges start popping up, it's ultimately your own responsibility to catch them. How many people even bother to look at their monthly statements?
Gift Sales and PayPal (Score:3, Informative)
If you sell normal items with PayPal, I can say that I've never had a problem with it. I know a few people on here have horror stories to tell, but I really can't.
If you are selling anything where the sender is most likely going to specify a different address (i.e. gift sales), DON'T USE PAYPAL UNLESS YOU'RE DESPERATE. PayPal insists that the two addresses agree. I did a payment system for a Chicago popcorn business, whose main revenue comes in at Christmas when everyone's buying those big cans of caramel corn to send to their relatives. At that time, PayPal allowed different shipping addresses.
As Christmas season started, they changed their policy and stopped allowing it, basically axe-murdering my neat little scripts. :\ I wrote a work-around so they could specify their shipping address on our site, then buy the popcorn using PayPal...but it's ugly and I don't recommend it.
So if you're a gift company...be smart...keep in mind the constraints you have to work within if you're going to do a front-end to PayPal. PayPal doesn't work for everyone, although it can be really useful sometimes.
A semi-good Paypal experience... (Score:4, Informative)
To unfreeze it, I needed to fax them:
Despite the glaring violation of privacy, I did get the account unfrozen in under 24 hours, and I did find them easy to communicate with.
Serious volations of PayPal policies. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dear [recepient's e-mail address suppressed],
On 09/03/00 you received $10.00 from [my e-mail address suppressed].
Our policy is to cancel unclaimed payments after 30 days, so
unless you sign up for a PayPal account these funds will be
returned to the sender. Don't let your money get away!
Note that this warning was sent some 14 MONTHS (!!) after the payment was sent. This is in gross violation of the stated policy of returning funds after 30 days. Moreover, as a sender, you don't have any clue in many cases whether the funds were actually credited or not.
In my case, it was only $10 at stake, but if many other payments were similarly misused, the interest racked up could have been quite substantial.
Bob
PayPal Tips (Score:5, Informative)
My tips are:
1) Setup a "Firewall" bank account. This allows me to receive payments from sellers to my PayPal account, then have PayPal direct deposit the money into this "firewall" bank account. This bank account has no money in it and once money has been transferred from PayPal to this bank account, I use the bank's tools to transfer the money to a checking account or savings account. This way, if someone gets into my PayPal account, they'll have very little or no money to rob from my associated bank account.
2) Use a dedicated Credit Card for Payments. With so many Credit Cards offering me free cards with 0% interest rate, I have the ability to use one just for online transactions. When the bill comes every month, it is easy to review. Fraud, or simple mistakes like double billings, should stick out greater than they do on my primary card.
3) When making Payments, use an affinity credit card that provides you with some benefit instead of your bank account. Using a bank account is preferred by PayPal because the cost to withdraw money from your bank account is significantly lower than charging your credit card. But their savings doesn't give you anything, so turn this neutral into a positive. By using an affinity card you can earn points on each of your PayPal purchases. I even had one case where someone on ebay bought something for me from $300 and due to problems I had to refund it. His $300 went to my bank account, then $300 came from my credit card to refund it back to him through PayPal, then I used the $300 in my bank account to pay off my credit card. I lost a little bit of money in the process due to PayPal's receiving fees, but at least I got 300 frequent flyer miles out of it!
4) Withdraw money promptly from PayPal. ANY company can suddenly go bankrupt from bad financial decisions you don't know about. It is therefore wise to use PayPal as a payment service and not a virtual bank account. When someone makes a payment, transfer it to your firewall bank account immediately so that it's in your control.
5) Read the fine print on PayPal's website. They have some very good fraud protection services that will protect you from evil people. But these services require specific things like "advertising PayPal as the only electronic Payment service you will receive." This really isn't much of a problem, it seems, since 90% of my ebay electronic payments have been made through PayPal (other 10% are BillPoint/Ebay Payments or Money Orders.) But you need to realize that if you take them up on their fraud protection, they have many ways to disqualify you if you don't follow their rules.
6) Trust your credit card. If you're using Credit Cards to handle purchases, many states like Maryland have VERY tough credit card laws which protect consumers. If you're using a 'new' service like PayPal, hide behind more conservative, regulated things like traditional credit cards and bank accounts.
I use Kagi (Score:4, Informative)
Another thing I like about Kagi is that unless I sell something, I don't get charged anything. And when I do, it's a flat rate, and very reasonable for the ability to take checks, credit cards, and foreign currency.
I'm not affiliated with them, but I am a satisified customer. If you're looking for a way to safely process a small number of payments online, look no further.
Some Advice (Score:3, Insightful)
First, have your PayPal checking account seperate from your company's checking account. This will be good for several reasons. If they dispute your account, and freeze your funds, your main checking account will be fine. Next, if you transfer all funds from you PayPal account to it's associated checking account (nightly, hourly whenever), and then from that checking account to your checking main account, the money will be safe. And since most banks nowadays let you manage your account online, this becomes very simple.
Second. If you are relying on PayPal, have more than 1 account. This is called redundancy. I'm sure most of you have heard it. If your main paypal account goes down, fall back to your secondary. And if you have 3 or 4 accounts, this only makes you more protected. Having these multiple accounts, you will need a quick and easy way to change from one to the next in your ordering procees.
Now, I've never dealt commercially with PayPal, only buying a few ebay items, and making my monthly donations to PennyArcade.com. I don't even know if what I said abaove is "allowed" in PayPal's TOS (or TOU, where U = Use), but if they aren't, and all these problem occur as often as I've read, then PayPal isn't something you should be relying on anyways as a company.
Just My 2x10^(-2) Dollars
The customer service SUCKS! (Score:5, Informative)
After visiting that same site [paypalwarning.com] myself, I decided not to use PayPal any longer. I had never lost any money through PayPal, though I've used it only a few times to buy stuff on Ebay. I went to cancel my PayPal account to simply be sure nothing would happen (it had zero, but it could have potentially be used). However, I could not log in on the site, and got an error message saying I did not have cookies enabled, even though I did (and confirmed it by logging in to here [slashdot.org] and a couple other places that use session tracking with cookies). I sent email to their various support addresses the web site indicated. The reply on those said I needed to submit the request on the website. But I needed to login to do that, which I could not. I called them on the phone but got stuck in menu hell and voice mail hell. No one ever returned my calls.
A few months later I got email from PayPal. It was promotional. Technically it was not spam, since my account was still active, but now I really wanted it canceled. I tried the web site again, and it had not yet been fixed. I tried mail again and got the same stupidity. I tried calling a few phone numbers. I actually got someone on the phone, but it sounded like the phone system redirected incorrectly as they were not expecting an inbound call. As soon as I explained what I wanted, they said I needed customer support, and forwarded me to menu hell. After spending at least $5 for long distance calls I gave up calling.
I then proceeded to "get attention". Since the email was on an automatic bounce, I set up an automatic system to send them email. It was adjusted to send every 2 minutes so as not to cause damage, but perhaps get attention. After a couple hours of this, it did indeed get attention. I got email back from someone with a direct phone number. I cut off the process and called them. Although this person was in the technical area, he did promise to get my account closed out. He was unaware of the technical problems, and I tried to convince him he needed to get them fixed, although I didn't know what the cause was. We tried a few things, but it didn't fix it.
It's a shame that the only way to communicate with a company is by tactics like this, but this is not the first place this kind of thing has had to be done.
I have since found the problem and I know what fix is needed on their server(s) to correct it, although obviously that's not my job to do, so I won't.
My whole point is, this is a company that does not give a damn about customers, only about money. If they cared about customers, they would have much better customer support. If they had better customer support, they might be able to deal with some of the fraud problems people have a little better. Instead, they seem to be trying to cut back on staffing costs by cutting out customer support and trying to discourage customers from calling them. I even read in one of the various news articles that were linked from here [paypalwarning.com] that the president of the company had actually said they don't want to deal with people calling in to complain. To me that means they don't want their service to get better.
This is definitely a company that needs to go into bankruptcy. Just be sure your money is out before that happens. And if you have any reason to send me money for anything, please read my /. signature first.